1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an image forming apparatus provided with a storage device, such as a hard disk drive (HDD), which is initialized after turn-on.
2. Description of the Related Art
In image forming apparatuses, upon turn-on, heating of a fixing unit employed therein for fixing, for example, toner on a paper sheet is started, and initialization of an HDD that stores, for example, image data, is also started. When the fixing unit has reached a predetermined temperature, and the initialization of the HDD has finished, the image forming apparatus entails a copy-enabled state. At this time, a message, e.g., “Ready”, indicating a copy-enabled state, is displayed on a display section in an operation panel, thereby informing a user.
In other words, upon turn-on, the user cannot 11 start copying until the fixing unit is heated to a predetermined temperature, and until the initialization of the HDD finishes.
For example, the time period required, before “Ready” is displayed, for increasing the temperature of fixing units may be shortened by a future improvement in fixing techniques. However, the time period required until the initialization of HDDs finishes is substantially constant between HDDs of the same type, and therefore it is difficult to shorten the time period required for the initialization process.
Further, there is a case where an error occurs in an image forming apparatus, and its user once turns off the apparatus and then turns it on again. Upon the second turn-on, the fixing unit is already warm, and therefore will soon reach a predetermined temperature, whereas the initialization of the HDD requires the same time period.